Spark Crash!

[Ted Schoenfelder]

Take a look at the video in the link below, particularly at these flight times: 1:35, 1:47, 2:45, 5:15, 7:27, and at the end. Spark ends up under water upside down! The aircraft was flown using the DJI Goggles, so no mobile device was connected or used during flight. The flight record was obtained by connecting the Goggles to my PC and using DJI Assistant 2 to upload the records to DJI support as per the manual. Flight records are not downloadable to the PC and can only be uploaded. No opportunity to examine the flight record or send it to others for an opinion! A serious weakness when using the Goggles, especially if the aircraft flies away!

Dropbox Link: DJI Spark Abnormal Behavior

For those who may not know (including some of DJI's support personnel), the flight records for the DJI Spark, when flying with the Goggles, are not recorded on the Goggle SD card rather they are stored in internal storage of the Goggles. The mobile device will always disconnect when the Goggles are first connected to the Spark RC. The Goggle flight record, detailed report, aircraft, and RC were all sent to DJI support for analysis. Support claimed there was no evidence of a crash! Look for yourself, what do you see? They never acknowledged locating the flight record and comparing it with the video and my report. They kept asking me to get flight records off the mobile device and seemed to not even know there own aircraft! They sent me two videos on how to get flight records from the mobile device demonstrating they did not even know where the flight records were stored!

After communicating back and forth and getting no answers, but 1000 apologies, I finally coughed up the money they demanded under the refresh program so I could get my drone back. It should have been a warranty claim, not a Refresh claim. DJI continued to stall, deflect, and stall some more, and I don't believe ever did a complete analysis. DJI could not verify they ever examined the flight record, let alone find it, though it was uploaded twice successfully to their server. Got the green "successful" annotation each time. I am extremely disgusted with DJI's handling of this situation and feel personnel are poorly trained, don't talk to each other, and do not clearly document what there analysis. DJI just says take my word for it! At least with a mobile device you can examine the flight records yourself as a check and a balance against this type of thing, but not with the Goggles. Anyone else experience this problem?

 

[Koala Tails]

You almost had a collision with a seagull very early in the flight. When I saw you quad flick about I immediately thought it was a seagull attack. Though I didn’t see another seagull close up while the flicking continued intermittently. In the end you were flying backwards & low, not a recommended combination.
I’m sorry you’re Spark went for a swim, glad you were able to rescue it. The lesson for all is.....if you’re drone is not behaving as it should don’t fly it in a risky situation.

 

[Kylie]

Of course they're gonna handle it poorly, they're gonna look for ways that's going to save them money when handling these type of situations. Anywaaaays I'm glad you retrieved your drone.

 

[shegeek72]

The lesson for all is.....if you’re drone is not behaving as it should don’t fly it in a risky situation.

Agreed. I would've brought the bird in for a landing before 2:00! Also, those people you were flying over didn't look too happy!

 

[Mark M]

The first thing I thought was seagull incident. However, after quickly skimming the rest of the video, appeared each time the AC went wonky, was during full pitch forward (sport mode?). Wondering if voltage was an issue (old battery) or wind? I've flown once and got a few pop up caution errors indicating 'motor speed max'. This means the AC computer required increased motor speed from one or more props to maintain stability, but could not get it due to motor or voltage limitations.
If you ever get such an error, slow down your demands on the AC, get low out of wind if applicable, and bring her home.

 

[Buddy411]

Looks like pilot error to me. Sorry.

 

[Tafische]

I am not unsympathetic to your situation, but what was going on at the 1:35 mark and then afterward where the Spark makes some really erratic moves? Did a gull possibly hit it from behind?

Without the full logs it is really difficult to diagnose. My suggestions and practice has always been to immediately return home whenever I have any type of unexplained or abnormal behavior. Quick and erratic movements like this can have unexpected results and sometimes even the advanced electronics of the Spark can't decipher what is happening. You end up with Yaw errors and other problems that can not be corrected in the air.

Again, without the logs it is hard to say...and I get what you are saying with the goggles. Looking from an objective viewpoint I would say that you should have landed after the first erratic move. If it has crashed at that point, then I might put more blame on DJI. again...tough call....

 

[Buddy411]

The "erratic moves" look like the typical gimbal freak outs that happen in sport mode and then the pilot trying to compensate by moving the sticks.

 

[Kidroc]

In the future if your Aircraft exhibits erratic movements you should land immediately .

 

[Dan Showalter]

I would have thought the Spark would sink. Did you have floats on?

 

[BobD]

I think water has a fatal attraction for Sparks...

 

[Buddy411]

I would have thought the Spark would sink. Did you have floats on?

It looks to me like it landed in the water very briefly, then he throttled up real quick. Due to the take off surface being liquid, it was unstable and flipped. Then grabbed it before it sank.

 

[Landon Johnson]

Boats and ships often have some serious onboard electronics - radar, comms, etc.... is this possibly a factor?

 

[VenomousSVT]

after the first flick you should have landed your spark.. period. Learn from this mistake and move on.

 

[Mark M]

Boats and ships often have some serious onboard electronics - radar, comms, etc.... is this possibly a factor?

True. Not saying that was the case here, but as a pilot, make sure to always be aware of anything around you that could pose RF interference.

Last month on vaca at the outer banks, I did a long flight out then initiated a circle video about 50' out from a tall water tower. I saw it had antenna arrays on it. Halfway through the shot, I got full disconnection from the AC and lost video. It came back a second later and I immediately cancelled the shot and shot up in altitude in sport mode to quickly get away from any RF.

For me, this was a lesson learned without losing my bird.

 

[Sparkzup]

Fascinating video. I think that two separate things happened. Your spark was definitely under attack from those gulls. There’s one point where you turn towards the lighthouse from a distance and the spark is flicked pretty hard. You can then see right at the top of the picture, a gull flying away in the direction of travel. So I think that gull attacked from behind.

I don’t actually think the gulls caused the crash though. There seemed to be a weird loss of control on the approach to landing, where the drone spins around a little before briefly touching the water. It powered up again, but flipped over.

It reminds me of the time I was in RTH mode close to water in the same way you are. I could see the drone was trying to land on the water even though I’d made sure it had set the home point properly, and had a little bit of a panic trying to stop it landing. I was a bit luckier than you were here.

I think in your case, I’d probably have landed sharpish when the gulls were attacking, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Glad you were able to retrieve your spark. Hopefully the water didn’t damage it.

 

[crumbsPenfold]

You were under attack the whole flight; immersed in the DJI goggles, you probably didn't even realise. I'm sympathetic to you because I know that looking at the screen does not always show wobbles like this, depending on the refresh rate of the connection. I have never seen a bird in my screen, they are extremely quick, but I see them when looking at the recorded footage later.

DJI included a silly (imo ) safety feature that means the drone turns off when it tips beyond a certain angle. We've all seen experts turning their drones off this way. I've never been a fan - I think it makes the spark extremely susceptible to bird strikes and extremely dangerous to people. Birds are everywhere and often attack drones. I don't know what happens to a person's skull when hit by a 300g plastic lump travelling at 150km/h, but I imagine it might kill them.

Granted I didn't see what happened, but it looks to me like your spark fell out of the sky after being tipped by an angry bird. Lucky it fell in the water and not on someone's head.

As others have said, "stop flying" if you see birds swooping you.

The original Phantom 4 suffered from instability when landing due (I think) to propeller wash and it's top-heavy construction. It could very easily flip over when landing slowly, after which it would stupidly grind its propellers into the concrete full power, trying to right itself. I think this auto-off feature is to prevent that problem - but I've never seen anyone flip a Phantom 4 to turn it off. In any case if this is what happened to you it confirms my worst fears that the Spark can easily fall from the sky.

What do others think?

 

[Ted Schoenfelder]

You were under attack the whole flight; immersed in the DJI goggles, you probably didn't even realise. I'm sympathetic to you because I know that looking at the screen does not always show wobbles like this, depending on the refresh rate of the connection. I have never seen a bird in my screen, they are extremely quick, but I see them when looking at the recorded footage later.

DJI included a silly (imo ) safety feature that means the drone turns off when it tips beyond a certain angle. We've all seen experts turning their drones off this way. I've never been a fan - I think it makes the spark extremely susceptible to bird strikes and extremely dangerous to people. Birds are everywhere and often attack drones. I don't know what happens to a person's skull when hit by a 300g plastic lump travelling at 150km/h, but I imagine it might kill them.

Granted I didn't see what happened, but it looks to me like your spark fell out of the sky after being tipped by an angry bird. Lucky it fell in the water and not on someone's head.

As others have said, "stop flying" if you see birds swooping you.

The original Phantom 4 suffered from instability when landing due (I think) to propeller wash and it's top-heavy construction. It could very easily flip over when landing slowly, after which it would stupidly grind its propellers into the concrete full power, trying to right itself. I think this auto-off feature is to prevent that problem - but I've never seen anyone flip a Phantom 4 to turn it off. In any case if this is what happened to you it confirms my worst fears that the Spark can easily fall from the sky.

What do others think?

 

[Ted Schoenfelder]

To all. The flight was observed the whole time by a third party. Although gulls were swarming around initially, they never touched the drone. The wind was calm as you can see on the water. The anomalies had nothing to do with the birds and was random, sudden, and short lived. Flight was immediately stable after each occurrence. The later half of the flight was not in sport mode. DJI ultimately asked for me to send in my Goggles because they are having a problem with flight records uploading from the DJI Goggles and still have not analyzed the particular flight record for this flight. I am still waiting for them, and waiting for them, and waiting for them. Very unhappy with customer support. Lots of nice words but no action!